the paramount issue put before the electorate, and the
Liberals were fairly entitled to claim that their policy in regard to
it had the backing of the majority of the voters of the United Kingdom.

Whether, however, this backing represented a reasoned view of the
Constitutional points involved and of the position, prerogatives, and
organization of a Second Chamber in the framework of British
Government, whether it implied that our people were really interested
in and had deeply pondered the relative merits of the Single and Double
Chamber systems, is much more doubtful. "When he was told," said the
Duke of Northumberland on August 10th, "that the people of England were
very anxious to abolish the House of Lords, his reply was that they did
not understand the question, and did not care two brass farthings about
it." That perhaps is putting it somewhat too strongly. The country
within the last two years has unquestionably felt more vividly than
ever before the anomaly of an hereditary Upper Chamber embedded in
democratic institutions. It has been stirred by Mr. Lloyd-George's
rhetoric to a mood of vague exasperation with the House of Lords and of
ridicule of the order of the Peerage. It has accepted too readily the
Liberal version of the central issue as a case of Peers _versus_
People. But while it was satisfied that something ought to be done, I
do not believe it realizes precisely what has been accomplished in its
name or the consequences that must follow from the passing of the
Parliament Bill. There are no signs that it regards the abridgment of
the powers of the Upper House as a great democratic victory. There are,
on the contrary, manifold signs that it has been bored and bewildered
by the whole struggle, and that the extraordinary lassitude with which
it watched the debates was a true reflex of its real attitude.

CAPTAIN GEORGE SWINTON, L.C.C.

It has been more like a bull-fight than anything else, or perhaps the
bull-baiting, almost to the death, which went on in England in days of
old. For the Peerage is not quite dead, but sore stricken, robbed of
its high functions, propped up and left standing to flatter the fools
and the snobs, a kind of painted screen, or a cardboard fortification,
armed with cannon which can not be discharged for fear they bring it
down about the defenders' ears. And in the end it was all effected so
simply, so easily could the bull be induced to charge. A rag was waved,
first here, t